Gour Maker, a trainee at basic military training, receives an “Airman’s Coin” at the Coin Ceremony Feb. 1, 2018 outside the Pfingston Reception Center at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas. Maker was recognized by his wingmen as a selfless leader and motivator during his time at BMT. (U.S. Air Force/Dillon Parker)>

After enduring countless hardships and overcoming unimaginable obstacles, Airman 1st Class Guor Maker, a dental assistant currently in technical training, found his way out of war-torn South Sudan, Africa and into the U.S. nearly 20 years ago.

Surviving

As one of roughly 20,000 children uprooted by the gruesome Second Sudanese Civil War, Maker's childhood was far from normal. After losing 28 family members, including eight of his nine siblings, 8-year-old Maker set out on foot from South Sudan to live with his uncle.

“The country I came from was torn apart by war,” said Maker. “It was all I knew growing up, nothing else. I've seen people die in front of me..

A sailor attached to a Marine Corps aviation element is in the hospital after being struck by a helicopter blade Wednesday, the Marine Corps announced.

In a release sent Friday, approximately 48 hours after the incident, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing officials said the sailor, who was assigned to the wing, was hit by a spinning UH-1Y Venom tail rotor blade around 6:10p.m. Wednesday. The aircraft was on the ground at the time.

The incident took place aboard Marine Corps Air Station Camp Pendleton, California, according to the release. The sailor was transported to a local hospital, which was not identified.

Apart from the sailor's condition, listed as critical, no details were provided about the nature of the injuries sustained or what the sailor was doing at the time of the incident.

“An investigation has been initiated and no additional details are available at this time,” officials said.

A Post Exchange gun sales supervisor shows a solider an American Classic handgun at the PX gun counter at Fort Huachuca. (U.S. Army Gabrielle Kuholski)>

President Donald Trump said Friday that he would review policies that keep troops from carrying personal weapons onto military bases.

“If we can't have our military holding guns, it's pretty bad,” Trump said in a wide-ranging speech to the annual Conservative Political Action Committee conference in Maryland, “and I'm going to look at that whole policy on military bases.”

“So we want to protect our military. We want to make our military stronger and better than it's ever been,” Trump continued in the speech, in which he also renewed his call for allowing trained teachers and military retirees to carry concealed weapons in schools.

Schools and military bases currently are “gun-free zones” that are easy targets for deranged shooters such as the one in Parkland, Florida, who killed 17 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas H..

The U.S. Military's top leader has launched an effort to make ground forces such as infantry and special operations units deadlier in close combat.

Defense Secretary James Mattis sent out a Feb. 8 memorandum to the service secretaries, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all combatant commands and other Defense Department agencies announcing the Secretary of Defense Close Combat Lethality Task Force.

“These formations have historically accounted for almost 90 percent of our casualties and yet our personnel policies, advances in training methods, and equipment have not kept pace with changes in available tech..

FILE — Airmen from the 4th Maintenance Group and 335th Fighter Squadron return from a deployment to an undisclosed location in Southwest Asia, Nov. 23, 2016, at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina (U.S. Air Force/Airman Shawna L. Keyes)>

ORLANDO — As the military services begin to execute the Pentagon's new deploy-or-get-out policy, the Air Force is working to take into account its small number of “non-deployable” career fields while being fair to those who do a large share of deployments, the top civilian for the service said.

The Air Force is keeping “fairness and the lethality of the force” in mind, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said during a roundtable interview here during the Air Force Association's Air Warfare Symposium.

“The Air Force has had … a lower percentage of non-deployable people than the other services, historically. We also have some career fields that don't deploy at all,” Wilson said on Thursday.

The Navy is investigating allegations of a drug ring at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., involving roughly 10 midshipmen, according to a senior Naval Academy official with knowledge of the investigation.

Three midshipmen are accused of selling cocaine, ketamine (a powerful sedative) and LSD to their classmates purchased on the dark web using Bitcoin, according to three midshipmen currently enrolled at the school.

No formal charges have been brought against the midshipmen during the investigation, which began nearly three months ago after a midshipman reported the drug dealing to authorities.

Midshipmen sources estimated the number of students under investigation to be as high as roughly two-dozen, despite the lower official estimate.

In a sign of how seriously Naval Academy officials are taking the alleged drug use, the second in command of the school, Ca..

Army researchers have developed an MRE pizza that stays in a pouch for three years without turning soggy or spoiling. It could reach field soldiers' mess kits within a year. (NATICK SOLDIER RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND ENGINEERING CENTER)>

Troops will soon get pizza in places where delivery drivers don't go.

The military is preparing to produce Meals, Ready to Eat pizzas that are engineered to stay fresh for three years in a pouch. Troops could taste their first pizza MREs in the field by next year, Army officials say.

These don't compare to the freshly made pizzas at an Italian restaurant, but they stack up well to store-bought pizzas, said David Accetta, spokesman for Natick Soldier Research Development & Engineering Center in Maryland.

“I think it's better than frozen pizza,” he said.

The pizzas come with only one topping — pepperoni — but more varieties will be added as troops weigh in on the kinds they like, he said.

Gen. David Goldfein delivers his presentation on Air Force Innovation at the 2018 Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando on Feb. 23, 2018. Screen capture from a Defense Media Activity video>

ORLANDO — Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein was frank with airmen when he announced he has not only been battling fatigue after a recent trip to the Pacific, but also a diagnosis of Bell's palsy.

“Chief, what's the crooked face, and the weird speech?” Goldfein quoted airmen during his speech here at the Air Force Association's Air Warfare Symposium.

He said he woke up Feb. 17 with the condition, which is paralysis of one side of the face resulting from nerve trauma. It's temporary and medically treatable.

“I'm on the mend, and it only hurts you when I laugh,” he said, adding that Gen. Curtis LeMay also had Bell's palsy while he was the Air Force chief of staff.

LeMay hid his problem by smoking cigars on the left side of his mouth. Goldfein brought a cigar w..

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